Produce your EC Sales List (ESL) or VIES return
Brexit changes from 1 January 2021
- Great Britain: You will not need to submit your EC Sales List (ESL) for the export of goods or the supply of services made to EU businesses on or after 1 January 2021. You will still have to submit your EC Sales List for sales made before 1 January 2021.
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Northern Ireland: You will still need to submit EC Sales Lists (ESLs) if you sell goods to EU VAT-registered customers.
See HMRC: How to report your EU sales for VAT (opens in a new tab).
If you are registered for VAT and supply goods to customers in the EU you need to submit:
- An EC Sales List (ESL) to HMRC (for Northern Ireland, but not Great Britain).
- A VAT Information Exchange System (VIES) return to the Irish Revenue (for Ireland).
When you run the EC Sales List report in Sage 200, it produces an XML file that you can upload directly to the HMRC or Irish Revenue website.
Note: Although the report is called the EC Sales List, the information is also suitable for your VIES return in Ireland.
The report XML file includes the following information:
- The customers' country codes.
- The customers' VAT registration numbers.
- The total value of goods supplied to each customer in the period.
- An indicator to show whether the transactions were goods, services or triangulated.
The EC Sales List or VIES return must be submitted online to the HMRC (HRMC (gov.uk) (opens in a new tab)) or Irish Revenue (Revenue (revenue.ie) (opens in a new tab)).
Submission of the EC Sales List is not required on strict calendar quarters so may not correspond to your VAT accounting periods.
Note: You must produce your EC Sales List report before you produce your final VAT Return, as producing a VAT Return will clear out the figures the EC Sales List requires.
Produce the EC Sales List or VIES return
Open: Sales Ledger > Reports > Account Analysis > EC Sales List (XML).
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Enter the criteria for the report.
- Calendar Quarter: Enter the relevant quarter for the report.
- First Calendar Month: This is the start month of the report. The month numbers refer to calendar months rather than accounting periods; i.e. 1= January, 2 = February and so on.
- For How Many Calendar Months: Enter the number of months to include in the report.
- Calendar Year: Enter the relevant year for the report.
- Branch Subsidiary: Select the relevant Branch or Subsidiary.
- Contact Name: Enter the relevant Contact.
For example, for an EC Sales List for October to December enter the first month as 10 and the number of calendar months as 3.
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Click Generate.
This opens the Save window.
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Browse to where you want to save the file, enter the filename and click Save.
When the file has generated successfully, you can load the file to the HMRC website or ROS (Revenue Online Services) website. Follow the online instructions on the relevant website to upload your XML file.
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